


Rather Poor First Impressions

by ncfan



Series: Legendarium Ladies April [35]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Tumblr: legendariumladiesapril, Xenophobia, legendarium ladies april
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 14:46:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18719212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: A hostage comes north to be a bride.





	Rather Poor First Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the April 24th [general prompt](), ‘Not Wholly Shut in Books.’
> 
> [ **CN/TW** : Xenophobia]

The wedding was always to be a private affair. The council had insisted upon it; the highest echelons of Black Númenórean nobility did not carry out such things before the commons, and this would go a-ways to fostering friendlier relations.

Tarannon saw little need to placate an all-but-defeated people, and told his councilors as much. If he was to wed a woman of Umbar, he saw even less why she should rate different treatment than a woman of the Dúnedain. She ought to have been proud to have been treated as a noblewoman of Gondor, and if she was insulted by such, well, she was the daughter of a benighted people, was she not? It only served as proof of her ignorance, of all she needed to be educated away from.

But you still need an heir, Lord Beren, Tarannon’s steward, had finally told him gently. You need an heir, and alienating your bride from the very day of your wedding was not conducive to getting one.

Tarannon had a nephew who would serve perfectly well as an heir. But, however distasteful the idea might be to him, it was unwise to leave the succession to the health of a single man. A private wedding, it would be.

He knew little of the woman he was to wed, just that she was the niece of some great lord. He had not considered it worth learning more; he did not see an all-but-defeated, ignorant people worth that effort, honestly, and he just as honestly had little use for a bride. He knew little of the woman, and had not laid eyes upon her before the unduly private wedding ceremony.

That he was met with a tall, dark-haired, gray-eyed bride with the cast of Númenor in her face came as no great shock. Though Tarannon devoted little thought to the people of Umbar, he knew that the Black Númenóreans, those of highest rank, did not mix their blood with those of lesser people. If the two of them ever produced a child, it would at least not be a child of debased blood.

He had not, however, known her age.

She was grown, at least, his bride. But as the ceremony was carried out, Tarannon looked closely at her and saw the youth in her face and bearing. This woman, this girl of Umbar with her unsuitably plain black dress (even more unsuitably flecked with what on closer inspection turned out to be white cat hair), was younger than the Dúnedain were wont to wed. If Tarannon had to guess, he would put her age at no more than twenty years.

It was…

Tarannon did not know what to make of the Black Númenóreans at all.

The girl lifted her head and looked at him. But where Tarannon might have expected bashfulness or a smile, she instead fixed him in a hard stare. She looked him up and down, her thick eyebrows rising ever so slightly as she did so. Tarannon had the distinct sense of being appraised, and found wanting.

That made two of them, though personally, Tarannon thought himself the more justified of the two.

-0-0-0-

Morwen’s brother had poured so much of himself into securing the king’s marriage to this southern lady that, when the negotiations were at last concluded and he had asked her to serve as the new queen’s chief lady-in-waiting, of course she had agreed. For the wedding to have gone ahead only for the purpose of it to be subverted later on would have been disastrous. (Beren had assured her that the new queen would not be allowed any ladies-in-waiting of her own choosing. That would at least make Morwen’s task somewhat more easily accomplished.)

Morwen’s days leading up to the wedding had been spent feverishly preparing the royal quarters. There had been no queen in well over a hundred years, and it showed on the royal residences, in Pelargir and Osgiliath both; the chambers that would have belonged to a queen were bare of even the most basic furnishings. Beren helped her, of course; he was just as anxious as her to see everything go smoothly.

But soon enough, there were quarters prepared that were fit for a queen of Gondor. Some of the tapestries had needed to be unearthed from old treasure vaults, but their colors had not faded enough for it to be immediately noticeable. And Morwen wasn’t certain the new queen notice the slightly faded colors, anyhow. Did they even have tapestries in Umbar? No, Morwen suspected her work would go largely unappreciated, but hopefully the new queen would be taught better, in time.

Two days before the wedding, Morwen had delivered into her care a long-haired, solid white cat with eyes as blue as a cloudless summer sky. The new queen’s pet, she was told. It was to be given the best of care, for its mistress loved it so.

“This is a relief,” Beren had remarked, practically sagging when he looked at the bat, lying asleep on a cushioned windowsill. “When I first heard tell of a cat, I had feared were being asked to take charge of a leopard.”

Morwen did not answer, instead gazing at the sleeping cat with something she could only describe as unease settling cold and leaden in her stomach.

Beren hadn’t seen the cat awake. It… It stared. It was just a cat, but she did not like the way it stared.

Soon enough, Morwen met the new queen, and it was immediately clear where the cat had gotten that disquieting stare from.

She was younger than Morwen had thought she would be, far younger. If Morwen had any children to call her own, she would never have allowed them to wed at such an age, but they were well past that point now, and would have to make do. She was an adult, at least, and her youth did not erase the king’s need for an heir.

The queen stood in the doorway, the dying sunlight dripping off of her like blood, and she just… stared. Stared at Morwen, at the other ladies-in-waiting, with a quality in her gaze that made Morwen think of old tales of Númenóreans who could so easily divine thoughts from the minds of men. Such gifts were uncommon in Gondor, and the idea of being subjected to it made Morwen—

“I am Lady Morwen.” While the others made their bows, Morwen, obligated to no such gesture, took a step forward. “I am to be the chief of your ladies-in-waiting, your Highness.”

Morwen waited so long for a reply, instead subjected to that hard, piercing stare, that she began to fear that in all of their preparations, Beren had somehow managed to overlook the fact that the new queen spoke no Sindarin. Well, Adûni and Adûnaic were somewhat similar languages, or at least, that was what Morwen had been told. Perhaps if she spoke in Adûni, and spoke it _very_ slowly, something would manage to get through.

It was at the exact moment that this thought crossed Morwen’s mind that the queen’s stare sharpened, and she finally spoke, in a Sindarin that was strange and oddly antiquated to Morwen’s ears, but was at least intelligible. “So, you are to be my keeper.” For all her apparent youth, there was no hesitation in her as she looked to the women who stood behind Morwen and nodded crisply. “You may leave us.”

Morwen heard much rustling of skirts and other small noises, but no footsteps.

“You may leave us,” the queen said in a slightly raised voice and what, Morwen realized to her withering mortification, was exactly the slow, deliberate tone she would have used to speak with the queen if the girl had not demonstrated her own mastery of Sindarin. “I have no need for you.”

At that, the women who were assigned here as servants and—yes, the queen had likely guessed at certain other motives—not explicitly as, well, Morwen supposed she would just have to be blunt and call herself a ‘keeper,’ as the queen had, filed out. They knew as well as Morwen that Beren wouldn’t allow them to be dismissed from their posts, not permanently. There was no need to fear _that_ outcome.

But that still left Morwen alone with the new queen, who had not budged from her place in the doorway, forcing her ladies-in-waiting to make their way around her like the water around a rock. Who still pinned Morwen in place with her penetrating stare.

Until she wasn’t. Until she was stepping briskly past Morwen, bold and confident as though she had lived here for years and was not a newcomer, and sat down in cushioned chair. The dark skirt of her incredibly plain dress—the other ladies-in-waiting had had more elaborate clothing than this; did the people of Umbar have no sense of rank?—settled around her legs like drapes.

The queen’s cat slunk out from wherever it had been hiding and rubbed around her legs, finally letting out an indignant cry at being ignored before its mistress finally scratched its head with a languorous hand. At that, the cat lied down on top of her feet, purring so loudly that Morwen could hear it from several feet away.

How Morwen had come to feel like an intruder on this scene, she did not know. But it was with some trepidation that Morwen stepped forward to interject herself into it. “You should ready yourself, your Highness. The king will be asking after you soon.”

The queen nodded stiffly. “Yes, one would hope he could find it in himself to do his duty.”

Hours passed, night fell, and the king never arrived, never sent word. There came over the queen’s a very singular expression when realization finally dawned on her. First, there came relief, such that from an older woman Morwen would have regarded it as an insult. But after that, there was only a bitterness so dark that Morwen dared not speak to her for the rest of the night.

-0-0-0-

It had come as a relief when the queen had announced her intention that the court remove to Osgiliath in the king’s absence. It was easier by far for Beren to actually have the running of the kingdom in the kingdom’s capital than it was in Pelargir, however beloved of the king the city might have been. When Tarannon went on his voyages without any instructions on what to do in his absence, the court as a whole tended to cleave to wherever it was the king had been last, and had historically been resistant to any suggestions by Beren that they remove to the capital so that the running of the kingdom could be conducted more smoothly.

But what had become starkly clear over the past few months was that the queen did not care for Pelargir. In truth, saying that she did not care for it might have been too mild a declaration. Regardless of the depths of the queen’s dislike for the coastal city, she had expressed a desire to remove to Osgiliath in the king’s absence, and a desire for the court to follow her, which the court had duly obeyed. Ironic, in more than one way, but useful as well.

Osgiliath was a-ways inland, and thus missives sent to Pelargir took some time to make their way to Beren’s hands. But the roads in Gondor were clear of bandits, and they had come to him without incident. Another thing useful for the running of the kingdom, besides actually being in the capital to do it: missives from the king, with assurances that he had been alive at the time of their sending, and which continued to express confidence in Beren’s ability to rule in his absence. The last point was especially appreciated, for it quieted certain voices that were not inclined to _be_ quiet without such assurances.

There had been a welcome abundance of missives for Beren, but there had been a noticeable absence of missives of any other kind, and thus Beren found himself traversing the corridors of the royal palace as the afternoon turned to a coppery dusk. There were few people in this part of the palace at any time of day, but near dusk, it became as deserted as the Rath Dínen at any time but that of a funeral procession. For this, Beren was glad, for it at least concealed from onlookers what crawled through his mind.

There had been no question of allowing the queen any more than the most nominal of the authority and powers that were usually associated with one of her rank. To convince the court to remove to another city would have stretched the limits of that authority, especially considering the sort of impression she had made on it, these past few months. (In his heart of hearts, Beren was not certain he could truly blame her. A very young woman, taken away from her home and from everything she knew, a stranger in a strange land. It had been necessary to isolate her, but still, if she was resentful, he was not certain he could truly blame her.)

The queen had exerted every last bit of her authority to have the court move to Osgiliath, and for making Beren’s own tasks easier, he was grateful. She might not have exerted that authority with him in mind, but still, he was grateful.

He was grateful, and all he had to show for his gratitude was taking the trouble to inform her, personally, that of all the missives that had been sent by the king, there had not been one written to her.

It was better that Beren inform the queen directly. She would have found out about it eventually; for all her isolation, the queen had shown a facility for ferreting out knowledge that made Beren wish she was not queen, so that he could take her into employ instead. And for all that the queen had no real authority of her own, there was a chance, however remote, that she might one day win the affection of the king, and with that, there would be an inevitable expansion of her unofficial authority. It was best to prepare for that day, even if it might never come.

At last, Beren reached the doors to the queen’s chambers, and nodded to one of the guards who stood outside to go within, and announce him.

It was so quiet, here. Even accounting for her origins, Beren had expected the queen would have more callers, more courtiers looking to curry her favor, than this. The silence hung heavier than the silence over the Rath Dínen, and he wished this was not something to be said of a place where the living resided.

After a few minutes of silence, the guard emerged, and with him, the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, Beren’s sister included. The women had looks of near-identical consternation on their faces, while Morwen was shaking her head.

“The queen will see you now,” the guard announced.

At virtually the same time, from Morwen’s twisting lips: “I will remain, and wait for the queen to call upon me again.”

As Beren crossed the threshold, he heard his sister muttering, “Dismissed like a serving wench; will I _never_ be treated with respect?”

That would have to wait for another time.

Beren rarely had reason to come to the queen’s chambers, and thus, he still had yet to grow accustomed to how _bare_ they were. The queen had seen that most of the furnishings in her chambers, in Pelargir and Osgiliath both, were put back into the vaults from which they had been unearthed. There was only the barest amount of furniture in her chambers, and Beren suspected that the ladies-in-waiting spent most of their time either standing, or sitting on the bare stone floor.

The antechamber Beren had walked into was nearly bare, and it stretched larger than it ought to have as a result. Copper light washed over the floor like nothing Beren cared to step in, cut to gory ribbons by strips of black shadow from the windowpanes. The queen sat just outside of this, in a hard, straight-backed wooden chair. A book was in her lap, her white cat at her feet. She was looking at him, that hard, piercing stare that never seemed to leave her face, but there was no special quality to it that would have made it more daunting than usual, so Beren sketched a bow, and waited for her to speak.

“Lord Beren.” A testament to life in Umbar, that the dialect of Sindarin the queen had been taught to speak was what it had taken Beren weeks to recognize was the Sindarin that had been spoken in Númenor by the Faithful, in the years before the Downfall. Her Sindarin was a curiosity to the court, one certain courtiers responded to more gracefully than others. Her voice was brittle as she spoke, which told Beren that he had arrived rather too late for his news to come as any surprise. “I believe you wished to speak with me.”

He nodded to her. “Yes, your Highness. I am certain you will be happy to learn that the king had sent word to us, and that no harm has befallen him on his voyage.”

The way the queen pursed her lips, perhaps ‘happy’ had not been quite the word to use. But she shut her book gently, and ran her fingers over the cover with something close to reverence, before redirecting her attention to Beren. “He has sent word. Has he sent any word to me?”

“…No, your Highness.”

A long, sharp sigh, and a glance towards the window. “That… comes as no great shock. I am under no illusion as to the arrangement that brought me to this place.” She looked back to him briefly, faltering ever so slightly. “I thank you for taking the trouble to tell me this yourself, Lord Beren,” she said quietly.

Beren had expected anger. He wasn’t certain that he liked this better.

As he was leaving, he heard a heavy thud of something falling to the floor behind him. He did not look back to see what it was.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Adûni** —Westron (Adûnaic)


End file.
